Memo to thieves: ‘Find My iPhone’ really works
Apple’s reassuringly expensive kit has always attracted a darker element, those wanting to apply the five-finger discount. It’s odd, perhaps, that years after the first thug had his career shortened by Back to My Mac, that there still are criminals that haven’t learned ya gotta turn the darned things off before the cops show up.
ifo AppleStore brings us the story of a thief who lifted two iPhones from the West Town Mall Apple Store in Madison, Wisconsin. Dude got in his van, drove away and then had the presence of mind to gas up, but not take stock of his situation.
With only a suspect description, arriving police could only take a report — until an employee browsed to the Find My iPhone page of Apple’s MobileMe service. Within minutes, the employee began tracking the stolen iPhones.
“The phones were showing up as blue dots on a computer screen,” said Madison police. “The officer saw the blue dots come to a rest in what appeared to be the lot of a PDQ store.”
Armed with the tracking information and eye witness descriptions, police detained one Jamal S. Jackson, 19, and then searched his van, finding the two iPhones still transmitting their location (Google Street View).
Well, Jamal’s gonna have a lot of time to think about his next (last) trip to the mall…
What’s your take?
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September 5th, 2010
Serves him right, I hope he gets what’s coming to him.
September 6th, 2010
You gotta love iPhone and Apple’s technology! Stealing is just not cool and people need to grow up; ooppss, he was 19 so I guess he will have time to reflect on his actions. Good thing he’s in America, other countries treat thieves differently; like cutting off the hand, etc. A little strong, but it does send a message.
September 6th, 2010
With the recent delivery of my iPhone4, my household now has 6 iOS devices (including 2 iPads).
The statement above about “…ya gotta turn the darned things off before the cops show up” is misleading because, if the device has a passcode lock (and devices with find my phone turned on, will typically have this), then it becomes impossible to turn off the device without the passcode.
A thief will probably not know the sequence for resetting the device… and besides, resetting the device simply recycles it and it will always end up on the home screen after a reset… right where it began.
So the iOS device thief has a tough call to make, as it is impossible to turn off the device (resetting it will not switch it off) and there is no battery to pull out: ditch the phone, and see if anyone comes looking for it over the next few days (when on standby, the iPad battery can last for days), for run as far as possible and hope that to stay ahead of anyone tracking the device, until the battery runs down.
One of the nice things about find my phone is the ability to erase the device… in the event that it becomes irretrievable (e.g. as you watch it cross the border into Canada or something.)